Which are the Best Countries for Innovation?

by Paul Sloane

Here is a report drawn up by the IMF, OECD and the UN to rank international innovation competitiveness. The authors constructed an Innovation Capacity Index (ICI) that draws on a range of available data to correlate the wide-ranging set of relevant factors, policies, and institutional characteristics which play a central role in boosting a nation’s capacity for innovation. In its 2010/11 edition, the ICI covers 131 countries and identifies over 60 factors that are seen to have a bearing on a country’s ability to create an environment that encourages innovation, such as a nation’s institutional environment, human capital endowment, the presence of social inclusion, the regulatory and legal framework, the infrastructure for research and development, and the adoption and use of information and communication technologies, among others.

The top 25 countries with their ICI scores are:

1. Sweden – 80.3

2. Switzerland – 78.1

3. Singapore – 76.7

4. Finland – 76.1

5. United States – 74.8

6. Denmark – 74.3

7. Canada – 73.6

8. Netherlands – 72.8

9. Taiwan – 72.5

10. Luxembourg – 72.2

11. South Korea – 72.1

12. Norway – 72.0

13. Hong Kong – 71.4

14. New Zealand – 71.3

15. United Kingdom – 71.3

16. Japan – 70.2

17. Australia – 69.4

18. Ireland – 69.1

19. Iceland – 69.0

20. Germany – 68.9

21. Israel – 67.5

22. Austria – 66.7

23. Belgium – 66.1

24. France – 65.3

25. Estonia – 60.5

And the bottom three are:

129. Haiti – 28.3

130. Chad – 27.4

131. Afghanistan – 27.4

It is notable that China does not do well – it comes in at number 64 with a score of 49.9.